1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of assisting individuals in lifestyle control programs, and particularly to assisting individuals in lifestyle control programs conducive to good health.
2. Description of the Related Art
Patient monitoring was accomplished by electronic equipment maintained at the user's bedside. Vital signs derived from physiological waveforms were monitored with the bedside equipment and alarms were generated if predetermined limits were exceeded by the vital signs. This bedside monitoring equipment became larger, more complex and expensive as each bedside unit undertook to monitor more physiological data and provide more sophisticated displays, e.g. color, more and better communications and more in-depth analysis of the data, such as calculation of vital signs and trends which required memory and processing capability. The provision of such units at each appropriate user bedside introduces considerable additional expense to the hospital user care costs.
With the introduction of bedside monitoring units, attempts were made to provide a measure of remote monitoring by transmitting analog waveforms of physiological data from the bedside unit to equipment at a central station such as a nurse's station. Subsequently remote monitoring efforts included analog waveforms plus digital representations for display. Both the bedside and remote monitoring activity acted to give alarms upon sensing an abnormal condition and to store data and analyze data to obtain vital signs and trends. But these systems are basically one-way systems reporting physiological data from the user. There is no communication with the user as a part of an interactive integrated system.
Telemetry systems can be implemented to acquire and transmit data from a remote source. Some telemetry systems provide information about a user's activities.
It is becoming commonplace to use wireless packet data service networks for effectuating data sessions with. In some implementations, unique identifications (ID) need to be assigned to the devices in order to facilitate certain aspects of service provisioning, e.g., security, validation and authentication, et cetera. In such scenarios, it becomes imperative that no two devices have the same indicium (i.e., collision). Further, provisioning of such indicia should be flexible so as to maintain the entire pool of indicia to a manageable level while allowing for their widespread use in multiple service environments.
Medical telemetry systems may comprise an alarm adapted to identify high risk users and/or users requiring special assistance. Some medical procedures and diagnostic examinations require the removal of any telemetry system components attached directly to a user. One problem with conventional medical telemetry systems is that the process of removing telemetry system components for purposes of performing a medical procedure or diagnostic examination can generate a false alarm. False alarms unnecessarily tax hospital resources and interfere with the working environment.
It is known as part of weight control and/or health maintenance systems to equip a person with a diet logger, namely, a device which records food types and food quantities consumed or intended to be consumed. The diet logger may be a monitoring device 10 (personal digital assistant, or personal dieting assistant); however, other portable electronic devices or systems may be used.
More generally, a lifestyle logger (or lifestyle monitor) has one or more of the following functionalities: diet logger, activity logger, environmental logger, and/or physiological logger. For convenience, the term monitoring device 10 is used herein to refer to a lifestyle logger (e.g. a diet logger), a physiologic monitor (including weight monitor, metabolic rate monitor), an activity monitor, an environmental logger, etc. The monitoring device 10 may be in communication with, or receive data from, the user, via any method, including manual data entry (but preferably using wireless communication such as BLUETOOTH® or IR methods, or memory card transfer), various sensors, transducers, and/or supplemental devices so as to obtain information needed for lifestyle logging. For example, metabolic rate may be obtained using an indirect calorimeter, and the data entered into the monitoring device 10 as part of a weight control program. The monitoring device 10 may also download information from external databases or devices via a communications network such as the Internet.
There is a need for systems using telemetry devices configured to be used user lifestyle management. There is a further need for wireless communication systems with monitoring devices that have sensors used for a lifestyle activity with feedback alerts.